The Invitation
by BiteMarks
Summary: Beth finds out a little more about the vampire world when Josef invites her to a party at his mansion.
1. Chapter 1

**The Invitation**

The invitation, when it comes, is written on thick cream vellum, and accompanied by a narrow rectangular box. The card, in his precise hand, reads:

_You want to know about my world? Stop pestering me with questions and find out for yourself. My home. This evening._

There's a P.S. at the end. _I almost forgot. Wear this._

She gasps when she opens the box, can't imagine parading in public in anything this expensive without a phalanx of armed protection. A diamond collar two inches wide lies flat against navy velvet, its faceted gems blinding in the harsh glare of the D.A.'s neon lights.

She has experienced Josef's generosity before, but never on this level. Perhaps he just doesn't want her to feel out of place amongst his guests.  
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By the time she wraps the towel around her chest and steps out of the bathroom, the rapping at her door has the urgency of machine gun fire. She's not expecting anybody, but sees through the peephole that it's Lowther, his chauffeur, and he looks positively queasy with anxiety.

"Come along now, Miss Beth. You're late. Everybody else is already there."

"What?!" It was only seven, hardly even dark yet.

"You must get dressed and come downstairs. _Now_. Mr Kostan doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Gowns fly out of her wardrobe; they land on the floor like wilted petals, or settle across the bed in a billow of air like expensive silk throw rugs. Finally one is suitable: a flowing strapless gown of emerald green. It clings to her bust and falls to the floor in an elegant cascade from a diamond knot under her breastbone. She smooths an approving hand along her side, nodding at her reflection.

Hurrying now, she twists her hair into a chignon and outlines her eyes heavily in kohl. Ruby lips complete the ensemble and she runs down her front stairs like Cinderella running from the ball; only tonight, the flight is in the other direction.  
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Lights are glowing from every window of Josef's mansion when she arrives, surrounding it in an aura of enchantment. It's a fairy tale castle, and as she steps from the car, she's stepping into another world. Will he be Prince Charming, or will he be the Beast when he presents himself to her this evening?

Wide double doors swing open noiselessly to admit her to the party, and she gasps. Whatever else she expected, it wasn't this. A series of extravagantly decorated rooms runs one into the other, like a set of dominoes laid down end-to-end on a grand scale, and each room is full of people. No, not people, _women_. There's not a man to be seen anywhere. And they're beautiful women. Extraordinary women. Every room is swimming with them. She has walked through the looking glass and into the Vogue version of Wonderland.

Beth wanders dreamlike through Josef's halls, there's an usual, heightened sense of excitement here, an underlying edge of sexual tension. It gives her goose bumps. Just when she wonders how she might amuse herself, make conversation with these haute couture clad lampposts, she's granted a reprieve, and sees that she's been mistaken, there _are_ men here after all. Her eyes shine, her smile the most genuine one there as she stands on tiptoe to scan the crowd, counting ten dark suited men, none of who are Josef.

"My dear," his voice is so deep and rich it reverberates somewhere close to her belly button, "Won't you do me the honor?"

She would have sworn he was in his mid-thirties, but something about his ageless eyes told a different story. He was taller than she, and handsome; in a sleepy lidded, dark eyed Spanish way. He held out his hand, and she reciprocated, thinking that he wanted to introduce himself.

A hand clamped around her wrist in a bruising grip and forced her arm to her side. She barely recognised Josef's voice as the one speaking with such respectful gravity.

"My apologies, Senor Diego. This one is previously engaged."

The smile on Josef's face looked strained and Beth looked across at the stranger's outstretched hand, seeing now that it held a tiny box, its open lid displaying a magnificent set of ruby earrings. Senor Diego's eyes flared white for a second, and then he smiled, bowed to her gracefully and retreated back into the milling crowd of women.

"What are you playing at? Do you deliberately enjoy causing trouble?" Josef hissed, taking her elbow and marching her to the darkest corner of the room. His lips were white with anger. "Why aren't you wearing your marker?"

"My.. _what_ - ?"

"The diamonds, Beth. The ones I instructed you to wear this evening."

Her hands flew to her neck. In her hurry she'd forgotten to put on Josef's gift.

"I'm sorry, I was late.. and in a rush.. and I just forgot to.."

"Look around you, Beth."

It only took her a moment to understand. None of the women are dressed alike, yet oddly, many are wearing similar pieces of jewellery: a pair of breathtaking girls by the piano are wearing identical sapphire pendants; a minute later, a coterie of young goddesses sashays by, sipping from champagne, butterfly brooches of carnelian and amethyst pinned to their elaborate hairstyles. Ruby droplets, the very ones offered to her by Senor Diego, hang from the ears of several beauties draped across the sofa to her left.

Her eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown.

Josef sighed and moved closer, lowering his voice. "When vampire Elders meet, Beth, the host provides the 'refreshment'. By tradition, a large selection of possibilities is presented; in older times a means of lessening the chances of poisoning. Every guest chooses his own meal, four or five girls he'll sup from over the course of the evening, and to signify his choice, she wears his marker."

A light dawned. "The jewellery!"

"The jewellery," he confirmed. "Girls who are unadorned are free to be chosen."

Her round eyes widened, realising at last the significance of Senor Diego's gift. "Oh god."

"Yes," he said.

He beckoned to a waiter with a barely perceptible motion of his hand, and whispered something to him. He turned back to Beth, inclining his head a little closer to hers. "When a girl accepts a marker, she's agreeing to be bled. And it's unacceptable to refuse one, Beth. If Diego had rested that box in the palm of your hand for even a second, you would have had to open a vein tonight my dear, and not even I could have interceded on your behalf to prevent it. As it is, my interruption will have caused him serious loss of face and he'll expect to win a lot of my money at the tables tonight in recompense."

The waiter returned bearing a discreet black box, and she held her breath as Josef's icy fingers fastened the collar around her neck.

She thought of her close call, the image of the dark stranger's head pressed close against her throat causing thick coils of emotion to churn in her belly. Relief warred with other, darker feelings on her face, as her fingers played across the cold, hard surface of the marker. _What would she have done, if -_ ?

She sighed. "It doesn't matter now. I'm safe."

"Are you?" A low voice whispered to the back of her neck, "Do you really think you are?" And as he straightened, she thought she caught the words, "You're wearing _my_ marker now."

Then he was gone, her round eyes following his broad back as it receded into the crowd, his face lost amongst the shadows.  
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	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I never intended for a sequel, but people have loved this so much I felt compelled to write one. An epilogue is to follow._The Invitation II

_Wait, Josef! Come back --_

-- is what she wants to call. But he disappears beyond the rim of shiny beauties before she can sound the words.

Her head is spinning, her heart, thumping in her chest. His words, his words –

…_You're wearing my marker now…_

…_You're wearing my marker now…_

– reverberate in her ears with the sighing rhythm of an antiquated bellows.

When she stepped out of the limousine this evening the charge in the air was undeniable. But she can't complain now. She went eagerly, unthinkingly, into the aura of perilous other-worldliness, swept up in the excitement of entering the fairytale. But this isn't the ending she anticipated. This ancient vampire world has disoriented her, crumbling her human certainties to dust.

Would he really play the beast and bite her tonight?

The answer comes to her too late. He has always been the beast. It is she who has chosen until now to see only the polished reflection that he casts.

Pretty pink and white petals bloom high on each cheek as an image of Josef lowering his lips to the place on her wrist where Mick's have been makes her body tremble with icy shivers.

Then she laughs.

He _is_ playing with her. Only playing. It would be just Josef's mordant cup-of-tea to tease her like this, have some fun by making Mick's unmanageable girl afraid of the big bad vampire in the dark. But she needs to see him, needs to hear it from his own lips, because the lighting in these rooms seems a little too dim now, the music a little too loud, the chatter a little too grating.

Her limbs feel loose, the pleasant heavy sensation of dreams or intoxication, as she steps into his wake, wading into the sweet eddies of girls who surround him like waves coming in to shore. But this jewelled sea is in constant motion; she can't seem to keep up, even though she's always moving. All she catches of him is a glimpse of the mirrored toe of one shoe, the crisp lapel of his jacket, or the creamy cuff at the end of one immaculate sleeve, the sparkling square cut diamond at it's apex big brother to the ones around her neck. The corner of his eye slides into and out of view maddeningly at the mercy of the shifting assembly, and always it's gone, as slippery as a fish, just as she's certain that she's caught him.

Watching her.

She feels a rising sense of urgency and begins to hurry, squeezing past the other women there with bold discourtesy. At last she reaches the edge of the murmuring throng only to see the swing of Josef's dinner jacket disappear into the darkened room beyond, the last of the twelve men to enter. He doesn't look back, and as the double doors seal behind him, a cold hand closes around her upper arm.

"Come along, you're the last of Mr Kostan's chosen."

The woman is beautiful, of course; a vampire, without question.

"There's been a mistake."

She thinks about trying to bluff her way out of here as the woman trails a sharp red fingernail slowly along the corrugated surface of the collar.

"You think a half-a-million dollar Harry Winston is yours by chance? That Mr Kostan has confused you for some other blonde entrée, perhaps?"

It is out of place, it seems, for a human to question a vampire, for the woman tightens her grip.

"Don't disgrace yourself, girl. You accepted the marker and it's obligations."

Her words carry the authority of a gavel blow. Beth's heart skips a beat and she almost gasps. It is beginning to unfold, unfold, and there is a pattern here if only she could stop her mind from reeling and grasp it.

Josef himself explained the significance of the collar to her before he placed the icy stones against her skin and snapped the clasp closed around her throat.

"Come. Five courses are being served this evening. It would humiliate the master to appear at dinner with fewer selections than his guests. And that won't happen tonight."

The meaning of her tone is clear, and in the end Beth is sure the woman releases her upper arm only because dragging Josef's dinner along behind her in so obvious a fashion might embarrass him. She ushers Beth into another room, away from the clamour that has so disturbed her, and behind her, the doors roll closed with the same velvety finality as the last sod of earth falling onto a freshly filled grave.

Mick has fed from her only once, under duress, and has refused her subsequent offers. Vampire bites are complicated, he tells her, dangerous. They can cause agony, kill. They mark possession, he declares in an ominous undertone. To be safe, a girl first needs to be properly initiated, he says. But she's heard differently, chinese whispers that girls find it sensual. A turn-on. That they climax during the bite.

Josef cannot possibly have intended for her to be here.

Someone takes pity on her then, because her hand is taken and she is drawn in a daze to a pair of red suede settees. She is amongst her sisters, Josef's other marked women, each diamond collar sparkling like a silver noose around their slender necks.

The instructions she is given are simple:

_Sit still. _

_Keep your eyes lowered when not on your master's hands._

_Come when you are beckoned. _

_Leave when commanded. _

And most important of all_ –_

_Do not speak. Not a single word. _

The vampires, none of them, acknowledge their presence as their meals enter and are seated.

Josef is sitting at the head of the heavy table, the wood of which is so old and polished to such a high gloss, that it shines like a dark mirror in the candle-lit intimacy of his dining chamber. Despite this, the room is so dim that if not for the gleam from the faceted edges of their gems, the women would seem nothing more than inky silhouettes in the gloom.

If Beth has any hope she might be spared this experience, it is dashed at that moment. She risks disobedience and raises her eyes to Josef's profile. The familiar, handsome planes of his face seem cold, alien, enigmatic. His bland expression hides a sinister mystery, one she is sure now that she does not want to penetrate. The world shifts, she's sliding sideways through a rabbit hole and she feels detached, unreal and peculiar. This cannot be happening to her.

Only it is.

It is.

Afterward, she can never remember in any detail the content of the conversation she hears that night.

Her senses are overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all, by the dread, and if she is truthful, other emotions, other needs not so readily acknowledged. As time goes by, the atmosphere in the intimate chamber becomes thick, redolent of sex and danger. The constant stream of blood does not sate them, rather, the mass release of human hormones from pain and sexual excitement -- that part she sees is true -- arouses the vampires' hunger, their blood lust, further. So that each girl called to service is in more danger of her master losing control and draining her dry than the donor before.

This meeting isn't just a simple discussion of the vampire community's leadership arrangements then. It is a test, a demonstration of discipline and self-denial. For who amongst them is fit to govern if he cannot govern his own desires?

One by one, each of her diamond collar-wearing sisters has risen as Josef's right hand beckons, extending palm up beyond the high back of his chair in an imperious gesture of command. He raises their wrists to his mouth as if he were raising a glass of wine to his lips, smiling at their shuddering climax, and when he is done, he places his lips against their ears and whispers, "Thankyou. You are released."

Beth watches from the shadows as her companions walk trembling from the room, aided by vampire servants, their legs weakened both by blood loss and by satisfied desire. The slippery warmth between her legs shames her. But how could being a silent witness to such open sexual gratification not arouse her?

Beth is now the only woman seated at his side, the last woman remaining in the room. Josef has completely ignored her presence throughout the trial of this evening and she is praying that if he has waited this long, it means he intends to pass her by.

It takes her a moment to understand when he rests his left elbow on the table and slowly his uncurls his hand, his palm extending toward her as if in casual invitation. Josef is claiming his right then, demanding she make good on the bond her acceptance of his marker has created.

Her heart beat spikes, the painful jabbing painfully in her chest clearly audible to the vampires, and eleven pairs of reptilian eyes swivel to where she sits in the dark.

"_What ho! Kostan's brought a virgin to the table."_

"_What, this one's never been pierced?"_

"_You're losing your touch old fellow, if you've left this one un-punctured."_

"_Give her to me, Konstantin. I'll see she gets a proper fanging."_

"_Trust you to spice up your meal, Pater. It's been a long time since any of us here have had a dash of genuine alarm with his dinner."_

She cannot see his face, cannot gauge his intentions; only knows that he sits in patient stillness and awaits the outcome of her deliberation. The other vampires also detect the odour of her unwilling participation in this congress, and shift restively in their seats with spiteful anticipation. Every man in attendance understands that Josef Kostan has handed the virgin female the un-paralleled power to humble him.

She cannot fully grasp the implication of the moment, but she feels the undercurrent, hears the danger in the cut and thrust of their voices. Josef is at risk for some reason here tonight. And his safety depends on her. If she has a choice, it eludes her, for the thought of shaming him before his fetid rivals is rejected almost as it occurs to her.

Beth rises and walks like an automaton to his side, placing her wrist into his hand, hoping at the very least, she will have the strength to deny Josef a sexual response to his bite when he pierces her.

She can see now, standing at his side, the triumphant smile he rests upon each and every vampire present, and the thought blazes into her mind that the ultimate display of vampire authority is the willing submission of a human opposed to being taken. He has not only averted disaster, he has conquered!

Finally he turns to her and closing his fingers around her wrist, he slowly raises it to his mouth, pressing his ice-cold lips against her wildly throbbing pulse. His kiss lingers on the delicate skin of the inside of her wrist, his mouth exerting a gentle suction over her aching pulse, the tip of his tongue wet against her skin. His amused eyes lock onto hers, asking a question, enjoying the shocked dilation of her pupils. And when he raises his head, he bares unbloodied fangs to the others, his pristine smile a clear indication that her capitulation is to be rewarded, that the bloodletting with this one will be in private.

Beth's sigh of relief unconsciously echoes the sounds of orgasm the other girls have made before her, and Josef presses his lips against her ear and whispers, "Thankyou, Beth, you may go. But you are not released. I intend to taste you. Now leave us."

After everything she has endured, he presumes too much. "Like hell you will," she grates in a low voice meant only for him, and she stands tall, despite her shaking legs.

Josef has played her this evening and she won't forget or forgive.

She can feel his cool eyes on her back as she retreats from the room and smiles with grim determination, knowing her face is lost to him in the gathering shadows of the room beyond.


	3. Chapter 3

Warning: This contains a depiction of some non-consensual activity.

**The Invitation -- Epilogue**

When he comes to her room the following evening she is upset, he can see she's upset. Fat, angry tears of betrayal spill from her china blue eyes and roll down both cheeks. She raises her voice, strides forward and strikes him, the stinging force of her blow spinning his face sideways.

Fair enough, he deserves that much. But she only gets the one. He traps the hand she has raised for a second blow and presses his lips against the hollow in the centre of her palm. He supposes she fancies that an apology of sorts. But vampires don't account for their affairs to humans.

Fury distorts her beautiful face and she rounds on him: how could you do that, she rages, she thought they were friends. She thought he cared for her.

It is because he cares for her that she walked out of that room unblooded he declares with more heat than he intended, knowing that she will never understand. He's here tonight to release her from her covenant he tells her, and stands unflinching as stones worth a king's ransom fly across the room and open a bloody gash high upon his cheekbone.

Take them and get out, she tells him, her voice contemptuous. He wipes the blood from his face with a handkerchief, folding the fine linen once and once again, before tucking it carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket.

He wishes it were that simple, he replies. Unfortunately it's not his blood that will release her.

Vampire Law is swift and brutal and if those jackals ever get wind of the fact that she remains untried by him, his victory will have been for nothing. He can see by her eyes that comprehension is dawning; she realizes that this is not a game; that he intends to taste her just as last night he promised her he would. Her heart beat spikes, her body heat pumping an intoxicating aroma of fear and animosity into the tiny bedroom. She plays her trump card then, the one card she is certain will forestall him.

He wouldn't dare, she challenges him scornfully, colour high on both cheeks, slinging the statement at him with the same vigour she did the diamond collar.

Mick will understand, he corrects her, confident that when the stakes are known, the fledgling will bend to the will of the sire. She tries to get by him, then. Silly, really, when she more than most, understands the full extent of vampire speed and strength.

She is struggling within the tight band of his arms now and his eyes silver, his fangs descending involuntarily. It has been a long time since Josef has had to wrestle with an unwilling donor and the nostalgia of the situation almost overwhelms him and he clamps down hard on his responses. He has no desire yet to hurt her.

Why are you fighting me, he wonders, his voice low and intimate, his lips brushing against her earlobe, when a taste, he tells her, may only mean a drop of her blood on the tip of his tongue from a pinprick.

Her trembling stills for a moment as she asks if this is all he needs.

No, he tells her regretfully, and his arms tighten around her waist and shoulders. His fangs must puncture her skin. He must swallow some of her blood.

She's straining in earnest now, she's seen this last night, girls swooning when he was at their throats, coming in undignified rapture as they pushed their wrists deeper into his mouth. It's debauched and she wants no part of it and she despises him.

Tasting her tonight is proving to be more difficult than he anticipated. Her thrashing distaste of him and the soft, struggling contours of her body are rousing the Vampire more insistently than he bargained for. His control is fraying and if she continues to provoke him this way, it is in danger of breaking free. And perhaps, he thinks, his is not the only sense of control that is at risk here.

She is resisting because she's afraid that when he bites she won't be able to contain herself, he accuses, and his voice lowers. He could smell her last night.

She blushes, mortified that he would speak to her this way. She wishes that he would stop talking, shut up, but he won't.

He could feel her heat last night, her desire, he tells her, his silver eyes glittering. He knows she is curious; he wants her to admit it. She wants to know what it is like, he taunts, what the other girls experience when he bites them.

It is true, and her throat closes around the lie she wants to spit at him.

Relax, he whispers to the hollow under her ear, if she will only relax it will all be over before she knows it. He pinions her with one arm then, and trails his fingertips along the sensitive skin below her ear as he sweeps the hair away from her carotid artery with his long elegant fingers.

She'll hate him forever, she snarls.

She'll hate that after this she'll want him forever, he breathes, and pushes his thumb against her artery, both to pool more blood at the puncture site and to heighten the sexual excitement she will experience from his bite. It is the Vampire in him, this crushing need to subdue her, and he looses the Beast and revels in it.

His fangs slide into her flesh, and she flinches, for it is painful, like being punctured with twin points of barbed wire. Only, then the pain subsides as a tidal wave of feeling surges over her and her knees buckle.

She is lost, she is adrift, and a wave is rising in her consciousness with a strength and speed that terrifies her. She is vaguely aware that she is keening, and then it hits her, and she is dumped, down, down, down to the bottom of her being; the feeling fills her nose and ears and throat, suffocating her and pushing upwards, ever upwards, until it cannot be contained and she explodes, moaning, in a low ululating wail that gushes outward and turns every bone to jelly.

He is cradling her shuddering body on the bed by then, spooning her while his tongue pushes, suckling, against her wounds, her life's blood almost overflowing from his mouth. The intensity of her response electrifies him and his arm cinches around her waist, pulling her closer back against his chest, his fingers fluttering briefly on her hip before coming to rest against the warm, moist opening between her legs.

He is hard, has been since the moment she slapped him, and he so badly wants to slide himself inside her, release himself into her welcoming heat. But he won his victory last night by virtue of his control and he won't relinquish that now. The privilege of fucking her will remain Mick's alone.

Mick.

Mick will require some form of reparation for his actions here tonight, and he will give it, despite the suspicion that his friend feels deep ambivalence about his union with this woman. As Josef kisses her neck, whispering soothing nonsenses into her hair, he speculates that Mick may in fact feel freed by the blood letting he and Beth have shared, that perhaps Mick's guardianship of her was a silent covenant created by the shedding of blood, Coraline's blood, one he can be released from now that Josef has put his own mark on her.

Only time will tell. This will either end them or free Mick enough to see her clearly as a woman and not the child he rescued. Either way, now that Josef has tasted her, his victory is complete and her duty is discharged.

He thanks her, whispers to her that she is released from her bond. He rises and pulls a coverlet over her. He feels an urge to stroke her hair, but it would achieve him nothing. She doesn't stir and he repeats it, has she heard him? She is free.

He regrets that it came to this, knows she won't comprehend the reason he has had to follow through and feed from her, that the intricacies of vampire politics are something she will never understand. If another vampire had become master of the city, Mick's guardianship of her wouldn't protect her or any of his people from a purge of the humans who keep their secret. Vampires only live to many centuries by paying attention to their paranoia.

He bends to retrieve the diamond collar from the floor and drapes it over her pillow. She has earned it. He doesn't think he'll use that design again though as a marker for the next rite of succession. He suspects this moment might haunt him.

He seems strangely reluctant to leave her then, but finally he does, and Beth watches from under half open eyelids as his broad back disappears beyond her doorway, his expression hidden in the shadows.

He has told her that she is free, but he has left his mark on her and now she will never be free.

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